


This Messiah Needs Watching

by mautadite



Category: Snowpiercer (2013)
Genre: 5 Things, Gen, M/M, Pre-Canon, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-21
Updated: 2014-12-21
Packaged: 2018-03-02 16:30:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2818781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mautadite/pseuds/mautadite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Snapshots. Five hours, five years, an eternal train.</i>
</p><p>Edgar had been pretty particular for a two and a half year old, and he’d only cleaved to two people in his early childhood. One, a sturdy old Irish matron that Gilliam had found, who saved her rare, toothy smiles for the boy in her care. </p><p>Two, Curtis. Like something out of a Shakespearean tragicomedy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Messiah Needs Watching

**Author's Note:**

  * For [slavetohiscat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/slavetohiscat/gifts).



> I used a bunch of my own headcanons for this, as well as information pulled from various interviews. It is worth mentioning that I imagine Grey to be about the same age as Pasqualino. Title from the Mogwai song [of the same name](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10CGn8AigTs).
> 
>  **Warning** for references to cannibalism and rape.
> 
> Thank you for your wonderful prompts. Happy yule, and I hope you enjoy this, dear! :)

**12PM. 2016 A.D.**

“You can’t come. You know that.”

Kurik is staring out of the tiny window as she speaks to him. Hills and plains amble past with the rumble of the train, all stark, all white, all forever. Namgoong has to concentrate to hear the steady hum of the locomotive; it’s as commonplace as breathing to him now. Kurik doesn’t have that problem, he knows. She’s always aware of the ground moving, moving, moving beneath their feet. Once, she’d told him that she’d never stopped feeling ill, ever since the moment she boarded. It’s a sentiment a lot of the passengers share.

In another life, this room would be called a walk-in closet perhaps, but here, it’s considered overly generous for Kurik, Yona, and the other four maids with whom they share it. Kurik has the bed by the window, and she looks out of it constantly. Every window on this train probably bears the marks of her fingerprints, her breath, the press of her forehead.

Namgoong waits to see if she’ll continue speaking, but she doesn’t. She’s still looking outside the window at all the rolling white, one hand absently caressing Yona in her cot. Namgoong fiddles with the cigarette between his fingers, but doesn’t light it. _Disgusting habit_ , Kurik calls it.

“What about Yona?” he asks finally, nodding at their daughter.

“She’ll stay with you, of course. You didn’t think I’d try to take her, did you?” He shrugs, but she isn’t looking at him to see it. “I trust you. You’ll take care of her, and I’ll find you both in a year.”

“How?”

Kurik laughs. “There’s only one set of tracks in the entire world if you’re to believe Wilford, and this blasted train makes the same journey, in the same time, every year. I’ll find you.” 

She raps against the glass, sharp and staccato, as if she wants to break it. She does that, sometimes. It’s a habit that she’s had since day one, and Namgoong’s never been able to get used to it, or figure out when she’ll do it or why. Sometimes, he thinks that that’s the point. Kurik doesn’t want him to get used to her. She’s not quite here. She’s already gone.

He sighs deeply, and she chuckles at him. He remembers the first time he’d heard her voice, that laugh, followed immediately by the tinny sound of the translator. They don’t need that anymore. He doesn’t have a head for languages, but she’d picked up Korean faster than anyone he’s ever known. 

“Look at you. Sighing like an old man at prayer.”

 _Look at you_ , she says, but she still doesn’t. Kurik has been looking outward for two years, and she isn’t going to stop now.

Namgoong flicks the cigarette between his middle and index fingers, and tries to burn the image of his wife’s profile into his mind.

“I don’t know,” he says, “if I don’t want you to do it, or if I don’t want you to do it without me.”

“Both, probably. But I’m not really doing it without you, am I?” She reaches back and taps her fingers to his temple, like she does against the glass. Namgoong shrugs. His assistance was meagre. Kurik continues, her fingers moving from his temple to his hand. “Humans weren’t meant to live like this, and I’m going to find a better way for the three of us, for all of us. There _has_ to be a better way. Wilford is not a god.”

She’s brave to say something like that, especially here in the living quarters of the servants, where Wilford and Mason have their eyes, ears and bugs. Namgoong has never met Wilford, never expects to. Ten years ago, a woman in a yellow coat had found him in Seoul, and offered him a job and a ticket. Every creak and snap of each door on this train is the price of his life. He earned it well, but Wilford wouldn’t hesitate to eliminate him. He knows that much.

He also knows, watching her gaze outside the window at their waste of a planet and seeing something that he does not, that he cannot stop Kurik. She has more courage in one brown limb than he has in his entire body, intelligence in every pore, and a train-long stubborn streak. Dread or one of its cousins gathers in Namgoong’s stomach like coolant. He wonders if it is an emotion that Kurik is even familiar with.

“Do not get yourself killed,” he tells her, running his thumb across her knuckles. There is nothing else for him to say. “Or anyone else.”

He sees her smile in the reflection of the glass, brightened by the strange pale light of what they call midday in the world now. He holds her hand, looking out at the landscape with her while their daughter sleeps.

“I am not going to die, dear one,” she says. “I am going to live.”

*

**3PM. 2020 A.D.**

There’s a bit of beef stuck between the plate and his gums. Trying to get it out with his tongue seems to be a lost cause, but he has to try, anyway. As quietly as possible. That yellow bitch is still sitting behind him, quiet as you please, like some kind of yolky watchdog, and she’d just love to have any excuse to remind him to _‘mind your manners’_ or _‘watch yourself’_. Hmph. She could watch all she liked. _She_ wasn’t the one sitting at Wilford’s table after having enjoyed a scrumptious pot pie and excellent conversation.

Mason waits, still worrying gently at his dentures, while Wilford cleans up. Bless his benevolent heart, honestly. He had his pick of hundreds upon hundreds of souls on this train to do his bidding, and still he took it upon himself to straighten up after himself, just like a normal person would. Very efficient, very commendable.

“I realise that it’s quite gauche,” Wilford says suddenly, “to ask you to think of work while you’re digesting, but do you have anything else to report, Minister?”

Mason sits up even straighter, smoothing down the pleats of his skirt. It’s his best suit, one that Wilford had had made especially for him.

“Oh, nothing that really merits your attention, Wilford. I made sure to give you all the important bits upfront, of course!”

He thinks he hears Claude scoffing in the background, but he ignores her; it’s easy to do, when Wilford is speaking to him.

“But as for the not so important bits… let’s see... ah!” This has been on the list for a fair few weeks. “John Cullen is about to release his new novel; he wanted to know if you’d perhaps jot down a line or two on the master copy before it goes off to print.”

Wilford wrinkles his brow, wiping at a spot on his stovetop.

“We authorised that, did we?”

“Yes sir, about five months back.”

“What is it about?”

“Ehm… middle car murder-mystery, I think. One of those _whodunit_ type things.”

“Who done it? Probably a tail-sectionner,” Claude says, even though no one asked her. Wilford chuckles though, so Mason forces out a perfunctory titter. He seems to think a lot of her, his yellow woman, though only the sacred engine knows why. Anyone can shoot a gun and faff around with a bit of tape measure.

“I’ll consider it,” Wilford is saying. He pulls out one of his drawers, and brings out a basket of fruits that was gathered for him just this morning; Mason had overseen the collection. He starts cutting up a mango, and yellow juice runs along his fingers and the knife. “Anything else?”

“Ehm… I had some new clothes done up for you,” he ventures, tongue clicking at the plate nervously. “The tailor says it’s the best thing he’s made this year! Very stylish. I’m told that crosshead wheel patterns are all the rage.”

Wilford smiles. He licks a bit of mango juice off of his palm.

“Very kind of you, Minister. I’ll have a look at them later. What about the tail section? Anything to report there?”

Mason wrinkles his nose. Probably his least favourite part of being Wilford’s eyes and ears and mouth. He feels like he has to scrub down with lye every time he comes back from there. Something about the tail section gets into the very fabric of your skin. Probably the fleas.

There had been a time, when… well. Mason’s boarding ticket had not been of the highest calibre. It had been a confusing, horrid time. Mason prefers not to think of it. That had been before Wilford had instructed him on his rightful place at the front, shown him the clarity, the peacefulness that comes with order and structure. Nowadays, being near the tail gives him a very particular sort of itch that he cannot identify... 

But Wilford had asked him a question.

“No, nothing again. The usual complaints and whining, the ungrateful sods. The catchers reported some problems in trapping enough material for the protein bars this month, but they were only a little short.”

“Hmm.” Wilford switches his attention to a very choice looking papaya. “I can foresee that things will have to get even shorter.”

“Ah, of course. Population control,” Mason guesses, and rightly, by the way Wilford winks at him smartly, tipping the knife in a little salute. A bit of papaya juice flies astray.

“We’ll have to leave them to themselves for a month or so, let them propagate some more, give them a bit more room to spread out. We can’t have the tail section eating out the entire population in one go; I’ll give orders for them to be put on half rations for a while.” He reaches into the basket for a bunch of heavy purple grapes. “It shouldn’t take long; the roaches don’t require much to breed.”

“Something they share with the people whose bellies they fill up,” Mason says, and that gets a laugh out of Wilford. A heartier one than before, he thinks smugly.

“Quite right, Mason.” Wilford picks the grapes off of the stem one by one, cocking his head thoughtfully. “That isn’t the only thing they have in common, you know. Control, and purpose. They both need to be controlled and observed, so that they don’t run rampant. And they both need to be given a purpose. Because without one… well, then they’re just pests.”

Mason nods enthusiastically. Vermin.

“Hopefully we can get them to understand that one day.” He picks at his teeth a bit while Wilford isn’t looking. The sodding piece of beef is still there.

“The engine is eternal. We have time.”

Wilford is putting the last few touches to his salad. A few slices of a bright green granny smith are tossed in, and a few squeezes from an orange completes it. He uses his fingers to toss it. All the juices run together, creating a melodious orangey colour at the bottom of the bowl. Mason watches, mesmerised, and then has to blush and cough his way through an explanation when Wilford catches him staring. Wilford smiles.

“I do so enjoy your company, Minister Mason. We should do this more often.”

“Of course!” Mason clears his throat with a grin. “Whenever you think is best, Wilford.”

“Good, good. If you have nothing else to report…”

Mason opens his mouth to speak again, but Wilford isn’t looking at him. He worries at the little piece of beef, looking on as Wilford hunts around one of the drawers for containers and utensils to parcel out the fruit salad. It’s been a few months since the last time Wilford had him stay for dessert, and the things that came after dessert. He had hoped…

“I can see her out,” Claude says, getting to her feet. Mason sucks his teeth at her; he’d almost forgotten that she was there. 

“I can find the door meself, thank you very much, it’s very big and it’s got a great big W writ on it,” he snaps peevishly.

“Now, now…” Wilford brandishes a spoon playfully. Mason clears his throat once more and straightens his skirt.

“My apologies, Wilford. Thank you again, for the late lunch. It was lovely, very filling, just what I needed really.”

“It was my pleasure, Minister Mason.”

When the door shuts behind him, he sags against it for a brief moment. Somehow, he always leaves Wilford’s room feeling both diminished and replenished. Being in the presence of the engine and the keeper must do that to a body.

He has a little covered bowl in his hands; a gift from Wilford, pressed into his hands despite all of Mason’s weak protests. _You’re only going to get that combination of fruits once every two years_ , he’d said, _and we can’t eat it all ourselves._ There really is no end to Wilford’s goodness. Surrounded by the grey of the walls and the railings and the door, each piece of fruit seems brighter. 

There is much work to be done. He’s having the guards lined up for inspection today, and at least two of them need to be given a small mandatory vacation. Mason takes a moment to remove the dentures as he’s crossing the bridge, and spit out the annoying bit of meat. Wilford’s bowl is cool and smooth against his palm. There will be another time, another invitation, another conversation that will go a little longer, end a bit differently. Order decrees it should be so.

*

**6PM. 2028 A.D.**

When he first realises that it’s happening Curtis wants to puke. Gut himself. 

He even laughs a little, he thinks. It’s so sick. What else can he do?

Throughout the years, the early ones right after it happened, they’d been hard pressed to find Edgar a caretaker. He was a symbol of course, Gilliam’s message made flesh and blood and little pealing cries, and no shortage of older women and a few men had volunteered to look after him. Edgar had been pretty particular for a two and a half year old, however, and he’d only cleaved to two people in his early childhood. One, a sturdy old Irish matron that Gilliam had found, who saved her rare, toothy smiles for the boy in her care. Two, Curtis. Like something out of a Shakespearean tragicomedy.

Everything he could have done to dissuade it, he had. But still there was always a tiny hand tugging at his pant leg, a little voice wanting to know if he’d like to share his protein block, baby blues hunting after his every step.

And now, fourteen years later… this. Fucking this.

Curtis has never talked to him about girls. There aren’t any girls to speak of. The first few times Wilford’s soldiers had come, during those weeks of squalor and chaos, they’d taken all the young girls and women. Some pretty boys, too, and to a lesser extent, men with the right type of muscular physique. Just taken them, carted them away or marched them off in front of a gun. They still come, every now and then, drag off any girl over the age of fourteen with a nice enough face. At first, none of them know whether to envy or pity the girls who leave, until the first of them comes back with a baby in her belly, broken teeth and fingerprints scored into her skin. Then they know.

He’s never talked to him about boys either, hypocrite that he is. By now, Edgar has definitely seen or heard him getting off with Brand. Maybe it would have helped, if he had said something. Then Edgar wouldn’t think that Curtis is some kind of paragon, some kind of exception, some kind of saviour that he needs to devote all of his time and attention to. 

But it hadn’t worked out that way, and this is what Curtis is left to deal with.

“What did you go and do that for, Edgar?” Curtis says, rubbing his hand over his face. The grime of an entire month sticks to it. Usually, the water in what passes for a bathroom is turned on once every two weeks so that anyone who wants to can clean the dirt off of themselves before another fortnight’s build-up begins. But there was no water last week, and Curtis doesn’t expect there to be any water next week, either. Ever since McGregor, they’ve been cutting back, and they’re not going to stop now. They’ll tighten and tighten the noose, until the chokehold is just short of unbearable.

“What can I say, I’m a humanitarian,” Edgar says, shit-eating grin firmly in place. He squirms up the ladder and takes a cross-legged seat at the foot of Curtis’ bunk. 

“I’m not sure how many people would put ‘giving up your bed’ under humanitarian. I can think of a few other words.”

“Stop being such a fuckin’ grump Curtis, you’ll get even greyer before your time. It’s only for a few hours. I’m a sucker for a sad story, and Gladys only wants a place to lie down for a couple hours while the tykes tire themselves out.”

Curtis leans over to get a look at the bottom bunk. Gladys is indeed stretched out on it, a thin blanket up to her head, her pepper grey shock of curls the only thing visible. Curtis sighs.

“And so I get stuck with you?”

“And so you get stuck with me.” Edgar smiles, all mischief and about a million dimples. Curtis wonders if his mother had had a smile like that, if Edgar had ever gotten to chance to see it before she died, if Edgar remembers. God. He’s a fucking kid. His life is fucked up enough; he should know what his mother’s smile looked like. 

There’d been nothing left of her. Gilliam, faint with blood loss and swaying from the pain, had ordered that her body be left alone, for the sake of the child. But the meat ran out, like it always did, and people were hungry. Someone had taken Edgar away, just in case he could understand, and they had eaten his mother too.

“Just…” Curtis rubs his hand over his face again, scrubbing the memory away like a physical thing. Edgar is seated at the foot of the bed, yes, while Curtis is at the head, but he radiates the desire to be nearer, and Curtis’ stomach turns. He’s going to have to talk to Gilliam about this. Gilliam will know better than he does what to do about this. “Just stay there, don’t touch anything, and be quiet. I’m going to try to get some shut eye.”

“ _‘Some shut eye’?_ ” Edgar says the phrase like it’s both incomprehensible and hilarious to him. “At… what is it, six o’clock in the fuckin’ afternoon? I know you’re old, Curtis, but... c’mon. You’re not that old.”

The suggestion in his voice is plain, as is the hope, the raw teenage hope and longing. Curtis looks away from him, trying not to see bluer eyes and longer hair, looking up at him in terror; bluer eyes, glassy in death, arms deadlocked around her son. He turns his back firmly on Edgar.

“I’m older than I look.”

*

**9PM. 2025 A.D.**

These are five facts about Gilliam.

One: he didn’t cut off his limbs on his own. It’s not a lie that he tries to perpetuate, but everyone loves to believe that about him, that he’d had strength enough to sever his own arm and leg off with only a rusty knife and the willpower of a giant. Grey would believe it about him too, if Gilliam hadn’t told him differently himself.

“No man can hold so much on his own,” he’d said, ruffling Grey’s hair with absent affection. “I wielded the knife, yes, but the first time, one man held fast to my arm to anchor me. I needed two for my leg. There are so many of us, packed in here together, and so few of us at the same time, all that’s left of the world on one train. What use is it to pretend that you are alone?”

Grey knows something about loneliness; he would know a lot more if Gilliam hadn’t taken him in. He counts this among his blessings like he counts words, ink, heartbeats, facts.

Two: he’d had a family, before the train, a big one. Those are concepts completely alien to Grey; family and a life outside of the rumbling ark. He isn’t a train baby. But it was here that he was made, and it doesn’t seem necessary to trouble himself to remember details before that. A sweet voice singing him to sleep, words with hands, older brothers ribbing him into toughness… they are all shadows.

But Gilliam, he had lived an entire lifetime before this; before the riots, before his voluntary blood-letting, before overseeing every drop of ink that Grey’s skin would soak up and absorb. His family is dead now, all taken by the cold or the pandemonium after CW-7, but Grey knows that he thinks of them often. He must, as all good men do with treasured things. There is nothing in him for jealousy – those faculties are used up to fight, fight, survive and fight – but it’s something that Grey thinks about often, too.

What they have, what Gilliam and Curtis have, Gilliam and the other donors… is that family too? Grey is not an expert, but he thinks so.

Three: he’d only let Grey kiss him on the sixth attempt, and that only on the cheek. What comes after takes much, much longer.

Four: he’s terrible at lying, quite good at evading. 

Five: some nights, he likes to be alone. Demands it, in fact.

When Grey is old enough, he starts wondering why. He trades in a favour for a new tattoo, one of the few he ever gets without Gilliam’s inspection. He goes back to Gilliam’s nook that night and touches the words for what he wants to say in a jagged line, from one of the oldest to the newest: _no – man – is – an – island_. The lesson connected to fact number one. 

Gilliam had mussed up his hair.

“I’m not really alone in there, Grey,” he rasped. “I have you out here, looking out for me. I’m quite safe.”

This is evasion, and Grey knows it. But after all he’s done, Gilliam deserves a few soft untruths, a little time to himself.

On those nights, nights like this one, Grey sits outside of the very last tail car, like he always does, just a thin barrier of canvas and cloth separating him from his mentor. Sometimes Grey will wander off to the section where he trains with his knives, sometimes Gilliam will send him to Curtis. But he always returns. Grey has no use for the time, none of them do, but he’s learnt to tell it by Gilliam’s habits. It’s always about three hours until midnight when Gilliam settles into the little cove of relics, books and paraphernalia, and it’ll be about three hours until Grey feels the umbrella hook tapping at his leg, beckoning him to come in at last.

That, for the very least, is comforting. To know that he knows Gilliam so well.

*

**12 A.M. 2031 A.D.**

This is what he likes about Gilliam so much. No dramatics, no theatrics. 

Wilford waits, cutting himself a neat little triangle of pancake as the static whines pleasantly in his ear. The signal isn’t too good, hasn’t been for a while. But what will you do when parts go extinct? Besides, the problem is probably on Gilliam’s end, and it’s not like he can just send one of his electricians down to the tail section to sort things out. Making contact discreetly the first time had been tricky enough.

“Very well,” Gilliam says finally, though he does make a point of sounding very long-suffering about it. “Two of the little ones.”

“They will have to be quite small you know,” Wilford says. He’d mentioned this a few times before, but it doesn’t hurt to be extra clear when children are involved.

“Yes, yes.” A gravelly sigh. “You know that this will not blow over easily.”

“Of course. That’s why I’m forewarning you. You’ll be prepared.”

“Hell of a thing to prepare for.”

“You’ll get through it,” Wilford snaps, starting to get annoyed. He draws a four-pronged pattern in his syrup with his fork. For a man who’s been the tail arm (so to speak) of Wilford’s operation for going on sixteen years, Gilliam can be extraordinarily weak-willed at times. But again, it could be worse. He could throw a tantrum of some sort, rail against the injustice of it all, but they haven’t had a conversation like that in years. When it comes down to it, Gilliam knows what has to be done.

“I have your promise though, don’t I? No casualties, no injuries?”

“Scout’s honour.”

“What do… why do you need…” Gilliam’s voice wavers, and then he sighs, a very deep sounding noise. “No, never mind. Do not tell me.”

Wilford chuckles a bit, but as asked, says nothing. They lapse into silence for a few minutes. It’s how they spend a lot of these late night conversations; cloaked in the thickness of calm. Not that it is ever completely silent. The rumbling of the train against the tracks is eternal, the humming of the engine is forever and that’s all the quiet he needs. 

“So this Everett fellow… do you think he’s ready yet?”

“No, no…” Gilliam begins to cough violently behind his protests. “No, not at all. But he will be ready, soon. In the meantime, you may start sending the letters.”

“As you say.” Wilford takes another bite of his pancake. “We’re playing the game a bit differently this time, but I hope you’re prepared for your losses. That is, after all, the goal of the exercise.”

Gilliam coughs softly. “I could say the same to you. Prepare for losses; I am not sending you sacrificial lambs.”

Wilford hums. Besides the usual roughneck rabble, Gilliam speaks of his boy, of course, the one who he doesn’t want maimed. A useful creature; Wilford idly wonders not for the first time if Gilliam had cut out the boy’s tongue himself. He’d certainly put a lot of effort into him. The things that he’d had that young man learn would rival some of the martial arts masters in the front.

Rival, but not truly challenge. Everything has its own place, and Gilliam knows better than to try to place the boy in a category that he will never fit. He wants him to live, after all.

“Everett is definitely your choice, then?” The pancakes are getting cold, but he still cuts the stack up neatly, devouring it in bite after savoury bite. He only treats himself to maple syrup eight times a year. “Curtis Everett?”

“My choice, and yours too when you come to know him. He will lead us.”

Gilliam sounds sure of it, more sure than he’s sounded in years. 

“You know that I cannot take you at your word on that,” Wilford says, trying to sound apologetic. “I do not make this decision lightly. There is much observation involved, calculations to be made, and from what I’ve heard, he has some tendencies and complexes that could make interacting with him difficult. This messiah needs watching.” 

“Observe, then.” Gilliam’s voice is like sand on sand. He sounds very tired, old chap. “You will come to the same conclusion that I did.”

“Hmm.” Wilford lifts his wineglass and swirls it around, opening it up. Very decadent, to have wine in the wee hours, but he must be allowed his eccentricities. “I am pleased that he inspires such confidence, at least. A toast, then.”

Of course, Gilliam won’t have a suitable substitute for wine down there where he lives, but it’s the symbolism of the thing that counts, anyway. Another conversation in the dark, another link established along the length of the train, another plan. They’ve never clapped eyes on one another in the flesh, but they work well together, he and Gilliam.

Gilliam, who is sighing and croaking like an old frog. “A toast… you incredible bastard, Wilford.”

Wilford shrugs and raises his glass. “Be that as it may… to the future leader of the tail section.”

“To Curtis,” Gilliam says, voice infused with static. “God give him strength.”

“ _Sacred engine_ give him strength,” Wilford corrects mildly.

Instead of an answer, Gilliam coughs disparagingly, and Wilford has to smile. He sips slowly from his wine, letting it coat his tongue and slip down his throat. He licks his lips in satisfaction. An excellent year.


End file.
